Hackney had London’s most recorded bike thefts, 1,236 in twelve months

Hackney recorded more bicycle thefts than any other London borough in the twelve months from September 2025 to August 2026, with 1,236 offences logged by the Metropolitan Police. That is 8.6% of the 14,428 bike thefts recorded across the 32 boroughs the Met covers.

The rest of the top of the table is inner London too. Southwark came second with 1,182 offences and Tower Hamlets third with 1,100. Westminster recorded 1,053 and Lambeth 1,039. Together those five boroughs account for 38.9% of recorded bike theft in the capital, which is more than a third of the London total.

Which London boroughs have the most bike thefts

Camden came sixth with 893 offences and Islington seventh with 858. Wandsworth was eighth on 752. After that the counts drop away quickly. Hammersmith and Fulham recorded 563 and Newham 555, and every borough below them recorded fewer.

At the other end of the table, Bexley recorded the fewest bike thefts, 63 over the year. Sutton was next lowest with 85. Havering and Harrow were close behind on 97 and 98. Most of the boroughs near the bottom are on the edge of London, well away from the centre.

Bike theft in London over the past year

Across London, recorded bicycle theft fell by 2.4% on the previous twelve months. The count went down in most boroughs, but not in all of them, and some of the sharpest rises came in boroughs that already sit near the top of the table.

Wandsworth had the steepest increase, up 27.9%. Lambeth rose 21.1% and Haringey 23.1%. Southwark and Westminster both went up by smaller amounts, 3.2% and 3.7%. Hackney is still first in the table, but its count fell 6.8%, and Camden’s fell 10.4%.

The biggest falls were further out. Richmond upon Thames recorded 24.5% fewer bike thefts than the year before, Redbridge 24.1% fewer, Sutton 22.0% fewer and Waltham Forest 20.9% fewer.

What the bike theft figures do not show

These are offences the Metropolitan Police recorded, not every bike that was stolen. Plenty of thefts are never reported. If people become more or less likely to report one, or the way offences are recorded changes, the count moves as well, even if the number of thefts stays the same.

The counts are also not adjusted for how many people live in a borough, work there or pass through it. Central boroughs take in large numbers of commuters and visitors every day, so they will record more of most crimes than quieter outer boroughs. A high count does not tell you that a bike parked on a particular street is more likely to be taken, and a low one does not make an area safe. The City of London has its own police force and is not in this dataset, so it has no row in the table.

How2London worked these figures out from MPS Recorded Crime: Geographic Breakdown, which the Metropolitan Police Service publishes on the London Datastore. We added up every offence recorded as bicycle theft in each borough over the period and ranked the boroughs by the total. The full ranking for all 32 boroughs is in the table below.